Nobody with a Good Brichka Needs to Be Justified:
Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls

Nearly all critical evaluation of Flannery O'Connor's 1952 novel Wise Blood includes some discussion of the arduous process of composition that the author engaged in during the roughly half-dozen years it took her to complete the book. Additionally, almost all of the criticism addresses the sizable amount of commentary and additional explication in which O'Connor engaged after the book's publication. O'Connor felt compelled both to disagree with those among her critics who compartmentalized her work as part of the "Southern" or "Southern Gothic" traditions, but also to make explicit the Catholic themes that take precedence in her personal evaluation of her work. In the essays and addresses posthumously collected and published in Mystery and Manners and in her extensive correspondence, O'Connor spent the remaining twelve years of her life clarifying her earlier works to a critical audience which tried consistently to fit her writing into a number of categories that she felt were inaccurate, inappropriate or simply wrong.

Nikolai Gogol's partially-completed masterpiece, Dead Souls (1842), underwent a process of composition, revision and ex post facto clarification very similar to that of Wise Blood. The subject matter of the book was apparently suggested to Gogol as early as 1835 by his friend Alexander Pushkin, Russia's foremost literary figure of the time. The nature, tone and scope of the work all changed substantially in the seven years in which Gogol labored over it. Additionally, he spent the eleven years after its first publication in an almost constant process of refashioning the work, attempting to make its meaning still more apparent, even as that meaning was changing within his own conception. Like O'Connor, Gogol felt his work to have been misunderstood by his audience and wrote copious commentary and defenses of his work's true aim.

The striking parallels between the composition processes of these two novels invite inquiry into the causes of an author's need to control both the critical and popular interpretations of their work. Leaving aside for the moment the positively startling (albeit largely coincidental) similarity between Gogol and O'Connor's lives and publication histories, a number of other more important similarities between the techniques and intents of the two works emerges. In several letters and interviews, O'Connor unequivocally cites Gogol as one of her major influences, a fact that makes the lack of critical examination of the connection between the two an even more egregious oversight. For example, in a letter to her college friend Betty Boyd Love from September of 1952 (the year in which Wise Blood was first published), she writes "Do you like the novel Dead Souls? I like Tolstoy too but Gogol is necessary along with the light." Demonstrating further that this was not simply a youthful fascination, she remarked in a 1962 interview that "I'm sure Gogol influenced me."

For the task of writing Wise Blood O'Connor borrowed from Gogol a number of techniques for crafting what Steven Weisenburger calls "a radically subversive mode of satire" whose goal is "to subvert hierarchies of value and to reflect suspiciously on all ways of making, including its own." Dead Souls, like much of the rest of Gogol's work, fits in extremely neatly with the kind of "rationalist discourse launched against the exemplars of folly and vice, to rectify them according to norms of good behavior and right thinking" that Weisenburger claims to be the very thing to which this new mode of satire stands in opposition. O'Connor adapts many of the tropes, symbols and modes of satirical depiction and presentation from Dead Souls, which participates (albeit rather curiously) very much in the cultural and religious (if not literary) norms of its time. She then recasts these elements in an attempt to negotiate the difficulties facing "the Christian novelist'trying to get the Christian vision across to an audience to whom it is meaningless." She brings a simulacrum of the message and the medium of Dead Souls into post-WWII America as Wise Blood, transposing it into terms that are relevant to the time and the place, as well as to her own Catholic brand of Christianity.

To attempt to prove this contention, I will examine both the primary and secondary characters of the two novels, as well as undertake an analysis of the satirical tools employed by both authors in producing their works. The ongoing polemic over the critical categorization of both O'Connor and Gogol provides a convenient and useful point of entry into this discussion, chiefly because it points out some of the major ways in which the often explicitly-stated intent of the two has been ignored in examination of their works.

O'Connor's Mystery and Manners is filled with essays in which she tries to shake off the labels (or at least the negative and limiting connotations that are associated with them) of "regional" writer or writer of the "grotesque." Perhaps the best-known of these essays is "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction" in which she writes the following:

I think that every writer, when he speaks of his own approach to fiction, hopes to show that, in some crucial and deep sense, he is a realist; and for some of us, for whom the ordinary aspects of daily life prove to be of no great fictional interest, this is very difficult. I have found that if one's young hero can't be identified with the average American boy, or even with the average American delinquent, then his perpetrator will have a good deal of explaining to do. Like Gogol, who was chagrinned to have been branded as both a politically-subversive and regional (i.e. Ukrainian) writer, O'Connor clearly believed her work to be misrepresented by her critical contemporaries. Furthermore, if one may extrapolate from their own published comments, both writers would be even further dismayed by the lack of convergence between their own stated goals and the critical evaluation that followed their deaths.

The similarity between O'Connor's comments in the previous essay and a quote from the narrator of Dead Souls'who may, with some hesitation, be identified as Gogol himself'provides a suitable beginning for direct comparison of the two works. In chapter 7, Gogol's narrator engages in one of the notable overt narrative "digressions" that mark the text as meta-fictional, or as Andrey Sinyavsky writes, "a book written about how it was written." The narrator states:

Happy is the reader, who, after passing tiresome, repulsive characters'characters who amaze by their melancholy activity'approaches a character who represents the lofty dignity of a man, who out of the vast whirlpool of forms, which are whirling in an every-day round, has selected only a few exceptions, who has not once betrayed the lofty harmony of his lyre, who has not once descended from his height to his poor, paltry fellow-creatures, and, without touching the earth, has cast himself wholly into the grandiose forms which are so far removed from it!' But not such is the lot, and very different is the fate, of the writer who presumes to call forth into evidence all that is constantly before our eyes, and which our eyes do not see'all the terrible, agitating mire of petty details which enmesh our lives; all those depths of cold, disturbing, commonplace characters with which our earthly way'is swarming, and, with the sturdy power of a pitiless chisel, dares to present them conspicuously, and in high relief, before the eyes of the universe. Like O'Connor, the narrator is lamenting the desire in the reader for the fictional presentation of an idealized form, whether it be the "average American boy" or the embodiment of "grandiose forms" above "tiresome, repulsive characters." While O'Connor is defending her work against the charge that "life in Georgia is not at all the way [she pictures] it," Gogol's narrator is making essentially that very accusation against the fiction of his time in order to defend his use of grotesque characters.

O'Connor's defense of non-idealized characters stems from a desire to supercede realism and to create the opportunity to use satire for the sake of allegory. Gogol's protestation is intended, as his narrator states, to deflect the "judgment of his contemporaries, the hypercritically unfeeling judgment, which designates as mean and paltry the creations which they caress'and denies to him both heart and soul, and the god-like flame of talent." Gogol wants to be able to move beyond sentimentality and present a wider range of characters, including those that are unlikable, in order to fulfill his goal of morally-didactic satire. Despite approaching their ultimate goal along almost opposite vectors, both authors create works of fiction that incorporate satirical description of a grotesque cast of characters in order to make a claim for the undesirability of the loss of morality.

The basic story of both Dead Souls and Wise Blood can be stripped down to reveal a framework that is remarkably consistent, despite the 110-year and 5,000-mile difference between them. Each book deals with the introduction of an outsider (Pavel Chichikov in Dead Souls, Hazel Motes in Wise Blood) into a somewhat provincial community of characters, seemingly all of whom have some sort of shortcoming, be it spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, or a combination of these. Furthermore, both of the protagonists are closely identified with a means of conveyance: Chichikov with the brichka (a carriage pulled by a troika, or three horses) in which he rides into the town of N. on the first page of the novel; and Hazel with the "rat-colored" Essex that he buys soon after arriving in Taulkinham. This vehicular linkage brings the notion of the road into play in both works, a trope that leads to an association of both Chichikov and Hazel with St. Paul of Tarsus, his blinding and, more importantly, his subsequent conversion while en route to Damascus. What little action there is in both books takes place during a transitory period in the midst of a larger journey (either fulfilled or planned) and both characters undergo a spiritual change as a result of their experiences in the towns that they temporarily inhabit. Finally, the setting in which the protagonist of both books is described in terms that clearly situates it as the "other" in relation to the hero. While neither Chichikov nor Motes would be mistaken for a "grandiose form" or the "average American boy," they both are given a history and other humanizing characteristics that are denied to a world in which other human characters are described in terms of animals or inanimate objects and vice versa. There is something in the protagonists which separates them from the world of poshlost' into which they are placed into and makes them able to receive some measure of redemption at the end of their respective stories.

This sketch of the structure of the two novels is admittedly drawn with simple and thick lines, but its applicability to both works not only reinforces the direct influence of Dead Souls on O'Connor's writing, but also contradicts criticism that is unwilling to remove the basic form of both authors' stories (not the details) from immediate temporal and geographical limitations. Gogol's explicit acknowledgement (in Selected Passages) and/or critical identification of the influence of Homer, Dante, Ariosto, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Pushkin on his work extends the lineage even further back in time and across national boundaries, making claims concerning the absolute novelty of the formal technique in either Wise Blood or Dead Souls dubious ones at best. O'Connor colors in the lines of the model provided by Dead Souls with the details from a world she and most of her prospective readers knew better than nineteenth-century provincial Russia, the American South in the middle of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the basic story and the Juvenalian brand of moral satire provide the novel a wise bloodline that dates back several centuries.

Gogol called his work a poema, which means simply "poem" as well as denoting something more grand, along the line of "epic poem." Gogol saw a model for his work in the Italian romanza, which he claimed was a sort of moralistic picaresque, blending lighter comic material with more serious, often religious or ethical, didacticism by example. This characterization is equally as effective in describing Dead Souls as Wise Blood, although it is somewhat inaccurate in describing the work of Ariosto or Cervantes. The epic quality of both works is provided by the serious theme with which both of them conclude, namely the possibility of redemption for the soul of the protagonist. For a devout believer this topic is of tantamount importance, especially if the hero is, as Gogol claims for Ariosto (and by association for himself), intended to be a "living lesson[...] for the present."

Both Chichikov and Motes are presented to the reader in the midst of a journey, with background detail concerning the reasons for their travel being parceled out throughout the progress of the story. Chichikov arrives in the provincial town of N. in a "small and pretty brichka" and is famously described in terms of nullities and negations of various kinds. O'Connor employs this technique in her characterization of Hazel, who founds the Church Without Christ while speaking from the hood of his car. He says, "I'm going to preach there was no Fall because there was nothing to fall from and no Redemption because there was no Fall and no Judgment because there wasn't the first two. Nothing matters but that Jesus was a liar." Even after Hazel's revelation (brought on by the annihilation of his car) he describes his ritual self-blinding in terms of negation, albeit one that seeks a positive end: "If there's no bottom in your eyes, they hold more."

This repeated lack of something in Chichikov--identified as the principle of ne to (roughly, "not that") in Gogolian criticism--has been interpreted as evidence of his demonic nature, as a part of his chameleon-like ability to adapt to his surroundings, or as an indicator of the death of his own soul. None of these interpretations, though, allows for Chichikov's true redemption, which is hinted at in the ending of the novel and is planned for in some of Gogol's stated conceptions of the uncompleted second and third volumes. Likewise, despite the fact that Hazel spends the entire book denying and negating the redemptive power of Christ, he too finds eventual salvation in the overthrow of his heretical (to O'Connor) beliefs. The importance of undoing nothingness can be demonstrated by examining the things which the other characters use as a replacement for the moral and religious beliefs that Gogol and O'Connor think, in their respective manners, should fill that void.

The five landowners which Gogol presents to the reader in the second through sixth chapters of Dead Souls are each allegorical representatives of a kind of zador ("fervor"), a catalogue of which Gogol outlines in the second chapter. Vasily Gippius claims that one of the main problems that Gogol notes in these zadóra is that they do not even amount to real strásti (or "passions") and make the characters who live according only to these fervors equivalent to mere "existers" rather than fully living human beings. The Russian word strast' conveys both secular and ecclesiastical meanings (as it does in English), and the absence of real passion in this "assemblage of freaks" points out the lack of impact that the Passion (of Christ, that is) can have on people who live life according to earthly and banal pursuits. People who can turn a poshlost'-filled thing like "a visiting-card, whether written on the deuce of clubs or the ace of diamonds" into a "very sacred thing" are wholly ignorant of the religiously-based morality that Gogol feels should guide their actions.

Similarly, the people of Taulkinham represent a collection of non-passions every bit as varied as the population of the town of N.. O'Connor makes her particular Catholic strain of religious didacticism more explicit by showing all of the grotesque characters of Taulkinham engaged in what she considers to be false religious practices or beliefs. From Onnie Jay Holy (a.k.a. Hoover Shoats), who preaches for financial gain, to Asa Hawks, whose belief was not strong enough to blind himself for Jesus' sake (even though he still pretends that he did), O'Connor's cast of characters represents a pantheon of practitioners of what Kierkegaard called "bad faith." Enoch Emery is simply looking for something, anything, in which he can believe, and Mrs. Flood wants to care for (and later marry) Hazel out of desire for his government check and her own convoluted sense of charity. Living up to its name, all of Taulkinham is "talking" about religion, but no one'including Hazel until his Paul-like conversion'is engaging in true belief.

The brichka by which Chichikov travels and the "rat-colored" car that Hazel uses as home, pulpit and instrument of vengeance both serve to keep the protagonists on the road, literally and figuratively. For Brian Abel Ragen, the Essex is "the embodiment of freedom he believes in'While he is in the driver's seat he can control his fate, and start fresh whenever he pleases." However, as Hazel is trying to leave Taulkinham to "start fresh," his car is destroyed by a highway patrolman in an oddly benevolent episode that triggers Hazel's penitence and begins his redemption. Like Paul, he gains the ability to see in a religious sense (his blinded eyes "hold more") after having his bad faith destroyed on the road. The fact that destruction of the car is necessary for Hazel's redemption also points out the subversive nature of O'Connor's satire, since the car symbolizes not only Hazel's faithlessness also represents a growing norm of American life in the early 1950s.

The hints of Chichikov's possible redemption also occur on the road and involve the vehicle with which he is associated. While fleeing from his meeting with, his brichka collides with an elegant larger carriage and he finds himself in direct contact with the beautiful young daughter of the local governor. She is described almost exclusively in terms of freshness, light and beauty, even being compared to an egg. Chichikov's reaction resembles rapture and his recognition of the true beauty of the young woman stands in clear contrast to the artificial and tacky attempts at beauty made by the older women of the town. Jesse Zeldin sees a parallel in this scene and Gogol's own beliefs about the interrelation between art and religion: "Truth and beauty are not relative terms'Gogol's religion, unlike that of say, Tolstoy, remained always firmly rooted in the beliefs and practices of his particular ritualistic church, with its emphasis on the beautiful nature of the divine."

The fact that Chichikov can be significantly moved by the recognition of true beauty indicates that he has the ability to choose "the straight road, the true road, leading to the magnificent temple, to the chambers appointed by the King" that the narrator mentions as the book closes. This metaphoric use of the word road in the midst of a passage in which Chichikov is riding down the literal road in his brichka makes the connection between the two almost inescapable. Like St. Paul (whose first name Chichikov shares) and like Hazel, he has had the "scales lifted from his eyes" by an event that occurred on the road. Furthermore, in the final paragraph of the first volume Gogol equates the carriage in which Chichikov sits with all Russia, thereby extending the allegory outward as a moral lesson for his audience to ponder. The fact that the "fervors" are described as diversionary paths demonstrates that Dead Souls is a normative satire, since diversion from something implies that the thing from which one has been diverted is the standard. At the end of the book, it is not only Chichikov who needs to recognize again his ability to see the beauty of the "straight road, the true road," but all of Russia.

Living solely in the fervors of the material causes the characters other than Hazel and Chichikov to be denied the possibility of grace by their creators. Neither Gogol nor O'Connor is a Manichean (it is a heretical position in the Orthodox church as well as the Catholic), but both recognize the possibility of losing sight of the Word-ly because of the worldly. Both employ satire in order to provide a corrective prescription. For O'Connor, the distractions of the material world are the cause of the various forms of bad faith that result from anything short of a "total commitment to Christ" like the harsh asceticism practiced by Hazel at the end of Wise Blood. This position is wholly consistent with her own fundamental Catholicism, even though it represents a standard no longer adhered to by society on the whole. Similarly, in Dead Souls, the "fervors" of the secondary characters are examples of the "crooked, obscure, narrow, impassable roads" that lead away from the truth represented by the moral standards that the Orthodox church had ingrained into Russian society over the course of the previous nine centuries.